What keeps me alive
by babri
Summary: An adventure leading to some advanced medical experimentation to save a rider's life.


A/N: This is a reviewed version of this story, I hope you enjoy it.

I own nothing except my thankfulness to the kind people who reward me with their precious reviews.

After rescuing Amanda from the Pike brothers, Lou and Kid had started speaking and were almost friends again or at least something like that, something that seemed being along the lines of a truce, even though the other boys didn't understand it completely.

Kid had spoken a few times with some of them about his intention of making up with her, about proving something to her, but he hadn't been truly clear with them, since it wasn't fully clear also in own his mind.

She, on the other side, was clearly still suffering for his crush on that Southern schoolteacher, even if going on separate ways had been more her idea than his. And the fact that she was no more going to Jimmy for comfort was doing nothing to make the boys stop worrying about her. She had stopped smiling for any simple and little thing, no more making them see the bright side of situations where no one could find a reason to smile or joke. And they had no more chances to tease her about her bursts or grumpiness, since she had become really even-tempered, maybe too much; she had removed all her excesses, all her extremes, all her true personality, her sparkling, infuriating, but unique self. She was her usual reliable, diligent, precise rider but she seemed to be back to those first days, when they still believed Lou to be a boy, puny but spry, really reserved and shy and quiet.

But while Kid had actually moved on toward that schoolteacher, Samantha, Lou hadn't moved any single step away from where their paths had departed, although more than one guy in the bunkhouse had hoped she would do it. Trying to avoid too much thinking on this subject Lou had thrown herself into chores and rides, making Cody happier and lazier that the usual, overdoing with every chance she got.

One morning Teaspoon called the boys outside the bunkhouse before breakfast, since he needed a team for a special delivery.

"The bank wants coupla bags in Seneca in two days, think this time I need more than two guns, so I'd say let's have at least three; excluding who's up for the next ride, who volunteers?" he asked.

Lou was the first, then Jimmy, soon followed by Kid, which made Lou lower her eyes and nobody else raise their hands.

"Alright, three boys, ugh and girl, sorry, are enough. Going to get the bags this evening. You will leave at dawn, all right? Now, check your horses and pack your things, then if your chores are done, you can rest for the day, so you will be ready soon tomorrow morning."

Lou was again her newly silent shadow, slumped shoulders, slowing walking toward the barn.

"Lou, aren't you coming in for breakfast?" Buck asked, getting more and more concerned about his special "sister".

"Not really hungry now, maybe I'll grab something later, if there's any left-over."

She did her share and then some, as lately usual, leaving a nice surprise for the boys after their breakfast when they went to find her, even though missing her and knowing that each missing bite would show sooner than later in her more and more growing skinny figure did not let them savour her generous gesture. In the meantime she went to help Rachel in the house, then moved back to the bunkhouse to nap, so that nobody managed to talk anymore with her that day; in the evening she did not really take part in the conversation, offering monosyllables when directly questioned and turning as soon as possible in, followed shortly after by Jimmy and Kid.

She was trying day after day to fall asleep before Kid moved to lie under her bunk, wishing with all her might to avoid hearing him getting down to sleep so near her, because every time she felt like a slap when he was so nearby, but so distant at the same time; their previous closeness was reduced to a mere physical proximity and she couldn't stand such a clash.

During the night Lou came to a decision; she couldn't let her situation with Kid hindering her friendship with the other boys. So she was set to try to go back to her previous self, except with Kid; he hadn't been able to cope with her the way she truly was, well, his loss.

Daylight was approaching when they went to the stable to take their horses, Lou and Jimmy familiarly talking, Jimmy amply smiling at the change in Lou's behaviour; Kid remained quite silent, feeling as he was an intruder. They saddled and started their way to Seneca.

The first day passed without any trouble, Lou and Jimmy setting the pace and Kid behind them. They rode fast and hard, to reach as soon as possible Seneca and get rid of those bank's bags. They got their mounts changed at the passing way station and went on till sunset, looking for a place to camp. They decided to mount guard taking turns, leaving the first to Lou, Jimmy being the second and Kid till morning. Luckily also the night proved to be quiet.

The second day Lou felt reversing a bit into her silent mood again, therefore she tried to stay behind, but Jimmy always found himself at her side, so Kid passed to the front of the group, trying to catch their conversation, though they were not talking that much. When they got to Seneca, they immediately went toward the bank to deliver their load, sensing they were awaited by more than few people. They had no time to neither get down from their horses nor reach the building that bullets started to rain, forcing them to run away, pushing their horses outside the town, desperately searching a shelter.

They found a cave and some covered spots from where they worked on scanning the ground to be able to come up with a plan as fast as they could. There were six men on their trail, against the three of them, but they managed to shot four of them quite quickly, two probably out cold, compelling the surviving assailants to high tail. Jimmy counted three horses running away, but before he could tell the others anything, Kid arose from the cave. Unfortunately, there was a thief still waiting, as Jimmy had guessed, who aimed at Kid.

Lou, spotting a shimmer, called out for Kid, while raising herself coming running in front of him, to protect him from the bullets. Two shots were heard and Lou reached out a hand to Kid shove on the side, while she got hit in her shoulder and near her temple. She went down without a sound, crumpling on the ground. Jimmy did not even blink till he shot the man making his gun fly out of his grasp and in a breath flew at her side, turning Lou on her back, finding out that her face was covered with blood, her blood. Lou was still strong enough to ask if Kid was alright before closing her eyes to bear the pain. Jimmy took care of her the best he could in the rush of the time, needing to check on the situation as soon as Lou was okay. When he heard a fourth horse running he knew that he could take his time to look after Lou, dressing her temple with his handkerchief; then helping her standing up, he pulled her up onto the saddle of her horse to head back into the town looking for a doctor, even though she was weakly protesting she was fine.

Kid was astonished, Lou had saved his life and from her first words, she was still mainly concerned about him being fine.

Jimmy and Kid quickly threw the two bodies on their horses and headed back in town to get rid of their not pleasant load.

When they came into the town they directly aimed to the doctor's office, who checked Lou's temple and shoulder, reassuring the boys she was quite fine; then they went to the bank to get rid of those damned bags while the sheriff was already taking care of the two assailants.

Lou wanted to go back to the station the same day, but Kid and Jimmy firmly refused to ride the whole day, given the ordeal they had barely gone through. After giving their statements about the assault, they tried to make Lou comfortably rest, but she only agreed to camp outside the town, not wanting to stay in a hotel. She went to the stream to clean up a bit and after taking just a bite of the dinner Jimmy worked on at his best, she immediately got settled for the night, refusing to talk.

Jimmy and Kid glanced to each other and toward Lou many times, but neither dared to open their mouth, wanting not to disturb her, nor make her temper flare, just in case. Having nothing else to do, slowly they got ready to sleep, too.

The next morning Lou was already near the river when Jimmy and Kid woke up. She had already pulled away the bandage from her head and she was checking her shoulder. Jimmy washed quickly up and then helped her to reassemble the bandage. The wound on her temple was not really serious, but one inch could have made a whole lot of difference. Also her shoulder was endurably injured, so she packed her things up, stubbornly well-intentioned to go back home without losing any more days on the trail. They surrendered to her will and made their way home. They changed their mounts at the same way station they stopped by toward Seneca, but they got delayed, since Kid's horse had slipped a shoe half the way between the way station they passed through and home, so they had to spend another night out.

They felt safe enough to spend another night on the trail and when through the same routine they performed the day before, Lou keeping on her silent seclusion. Nothing disturbed their peace till the morning came, when they woke up hearing some horses coming at a fast gallop.

They got immediately up, but this time they had no shelter, except for some trees, so they dispersed running in different directions, hoping to confuse their attackers and be able to defend each other better.

Jimmy and Lou quickly found some hidden spots where they instantly disappeared, getting ready to accurately shot their six assailants, waiting to have them in their line of shot, not wanting to risk empty attempts while giving away their positions.

Unfortunately Kid got caught between two of the men still going after him on their horses and became the aim of the revenge of the thieves they had scattered two days before. Each of them shot against him, just grazing his limbs, making him bleed quite a lot, before Lou, coming out from her safe hiding, ran toward them, closely followed by Jimmy, getting with every shot one man down. They managed to put the only one survivor to flight, but Kid was seriously weakened for all his wounds and appeared really pale, so they hoisted him on his horse and ran like hell to get the doctor, not even thinking about stopping at the station.

Doc Barnes was dismounting from his horse when he saw them. They brought Kid inside and after a quick look over the doctor shook his head.

"Lost a hell lot of blood."

Teaspoon had seen them arrive and rushed toward the doctor's office, almost barging in.

"What can you do?" Jimmy asked.

Lou was not able to talk; she was almost trembling, her throat in knots and her mouth dry.

"Well, nothing much. As I said, he has lost too much blood; he doesn't have the time to get better by himself. He's going to die, if we don't take some risks. I could try to perform blood transfusion, but I cannot guarantee the effect. It's kind of having two people being connected by a tube to take blood from the first to give to the second. However, there are many risks, this technique is not really perfected and safe, he could have problems in receiving other people's blood, but, seeing his condition, we have nothing to lose to try as soon as we settled one little problem. I just need a donor".

Lou stepped forward.

"I have already done it once, and it went alright, so you can try with me", not paying any attention to Jimmy, who was going to protest she was too weak, being wounded herself.

"Well, if it suited all right once before, I hope we can have the same result…Lou, lie on that table, and you have to move Kid on the other one, lower than your friend, then go out please… I need some space to work on them," the doctor instructed Jimmy and Teaspoon.

Half an hour later Lou was lying next to Kid, but on a higher table, while the doctor was trying to explain what he was doing, sounding more focused on remember exactly what should be done than on clearing the donor's mind. Lou's arm was linked to an object the doctor called impellor, connected with another one, named gravitator, used to collect some of her blood which should be passed to Kid's arm through a very small tube. She had closed her eyes, knowing that she had to save all her strength to accomplish the transfusion, but trying her best not to fall asleep, aware even before the doctor told her that otherwise her body would stop letting the blood come out.

"Now, we should be ready, since everything is in place, well, at least I think so; it's the first time I do something like this, so I really hope it works... however everything is almost the same it is in this drawing on my book... Listen, Lou, here it says that was in 1818 that Dr. James Blundell, a British obstetrician, performed the first successful blood transfusion of human blood... he saved some lives doing this thing, now I just wish to achieve the same result, keep your fingers crossed and let's start."

Doc Barnes was doing his best to keep the girl awake, talking and explaining all the things he knew about that transfusion procedure, even reading aloud some bites from his book about this particular and new technique.

After a couple of hours Kid was slowly regaining colour, while she was fading hers. The doctor had stopped chatting to Lou; he knew she needed all her energy to get to the end of this process.

When Teaspoon came in the room after five hours, they had almost the same colour, they were both pale, but Kid wasn't ghost-white anymore. The doctor had stopped the transfusion, to let Lou rest for a while, so she was sleeping. Teaspoon looked toward Lou with tenderness. Jimmy had told everybody what had happened on their way to Seneca and back. Teaspoon was plainly admiring his girl for what she dared to do. Yes, to him she was his girl, her place in his heart was huge. He had loved Lou as a boy, just like all the other boys, but then she became his special girl. When he had the chance to spend some time with Amanda believing her his daughter he was aware that he did truly wish for Louise to be his own and to get someday a chance to walk with her hand on his arm and dancing with her. She was so pretty, the boyish clothes did not do a very good job at hiding her beauty, but it was her personality that shone through her eyes to always catch his gaze. Never a dull moment with his girl: smiling, yelling, riding, running, working, swimming – still hard not to go there – even eating was an event in her company. You could see her emotions crossing her features every moment. No words were really required to know her mind. She had saved Kid's life, once, now she was trying to do it a second time: twice in two days, that should be enough to tell anybody something about what had been going on with her. Teaspoon was praying that it was enough to save Kid and Lou, in more ways than one. He then moved his eyes on her neighbour and he was not able to just keep his thoughts to himself.

"She really loves you a lot, Kid, hope you return her the way she deserves. She is so incredibly sweet when she is not fighting to make her own way in this job, having you go mad and nag her, trying to hide that beautiful girl she is from everybody to be allowed to keep this job".

Lou heard a familiar voice and opened her eyes, trying to sharpen the image, but she was really weakened by the transfusion, so she gave up and closed her eyes again.

Teaspoon went to find the doctor.

"Doc, will he be fine, after this thing?" Teaspoon asked him, a note of concern in his voice.

"Well, I told you there's no guarantee that Kid will be fine, but I'm hopeful seeing how he is reacting."

"That's good to hear, but I meant Lou."

"It will take her some time to reform all her blood, but women are stronger than men on this side, she is used to it, even if not with this amount... but I'm pretty sure she'll be fine, just fine."

"How do you know she's a girl?"

"Well, quite easy to spot for a doctor."

"However, you say, no need to worry about her, right?"

"You don't need to be concerned about her, she's really strong and quick in recovering, as far as what Hickok told me about her, I must admit that her wound on the temple is almost gone and the shoulder is not that bad. We can just wait for both of them to pass the night to be able to foresee the result of this experiment."

Before turning down for the night, the doctor worked on a second transfusion, since Lou had proven to bear the first try quite well. It lasted about a half an hour, then the doctor blocked again the blood flow, leaving all the instruments in place for the next morning, confident enough that both his patients would not move a lot during the night.

The night was quiet, Kid started to breathe deep and even, stir a little, near to resemble someone sleeping as usual, while Lou was stiller that she usually was.

The morning came and she successfully opened her eyes, this time, to look down to the table where Kid was. He looked serene and completely relaxed, as he had been sleeping for a couple of days, having no trouble in his whole life. She felt quite weak, so she tried to sleep some more. She didn't acknowledge the long, longing gaze Kid turned on her when he woke up. He tried to move but felt instantly a pain throughout his body. So he looked around and found Lou connected with him with a subtle tube and some strange objects, running from her arm to his. She was pale, more than the last time he saw her.

'What's wrong with her? What has she done?' he asked himself in his mind.

Then a blurred memory of being shot many times came back to his mind and then the reduced sounds of some words recollect in his brain and he found the answer by himself: she was trying to save his life. But she was already hurt, twice, and again for him, to save him.

'Why should she do so much for me? Why is she trying to protect me, caring so little about her own life?' he thought, then Kid tried to recall all the times they had faced danger together. He had helped her as many times as she had done for him, maybe she had scored some more, surely she had saved his life at the risk of her own once for sure.

'What could this mean? Is it possible? Does she really care about me more than her own life? Even after what I've done, making her suffering, spending all my spare time with another girl since we broke up... I have heard her crying as long as she falls asleep at nights, I have seen how she tries at all costs to avoid my eyes, since hers are often full of unshed tears…What a fool I am. Wait, think about what she said that time, that damn day. She didn't say "No", only that she wasn't ready and she was sorry. She has been really sorry, everyone could see her heart was simply crunched because of the weight of my behaviour, but she never left, she could have easily tried to change job or station at least, but she has kept staying tagged along behind me, no matters if every step was a torture, she couldn't help it, almost the way she couldn't help breathing. It seemed she needed to be with me in any possible way to keep herself alive… and doing this, she had been keeping me alive… she is what keeps me alive.'


End file.
